-
Buried in the email from Barclays today:
Changes to your anniversary reward
You currently receive a free cabin upgrade voucher after paying 12 monthly fees, which is called your anniversary reward. You will continue to receive this, but you will need to hold Barclays Avios Rewards for 12 months and pay 12 monthly fees.
From early next year, we’ll offer you a choice of anniversary reward between a cabin upgrade voucher and a specified amount of Avios. We’ll write to you to tell you if you have a choice of reward, how you can confirm your choice and when you’ll receive it. If you haven’t made a choice a month before your anniversary, you’ll be awarded the free cabin upgrade voucher.
Your cabin upgrade voucher will be added to your BAEC account within five working days. If you choose Avios as your reward, this will be added to your BAEC account on the second working day of the following month.
I got this too. Presumably it will be a derisory number of avios, but with the vouchers piling up still a nice alternative
Just read that part of the email too. You beat me to the punch.
Interested to find out how much they’ll offer
I got this too. Presumably it will be a derisory number of avios, but with the vouchers piling up still a nice alternative
Why should it be a “derisory number of Avios”? Barclays has been quite absurdly generous thus far.
I got an email today about my October Avios statement.
Presumably this is some other email.I got an email today about my October Avios statement.
Presumably this is some other email.It’s a separate email and relates to Barclays Avios Rewards on the Premier bank account and Dual Rewards from also holding the Barclaycard Avios Plus.
I got this too. Presumably it will be a derisory number of avios, but with the vouchers piling up still a nice alternative
Why should it be a “derisory number of Avios”? Barclays has been quite absurdly generous thus far.
I guess my logic would be that they have been very generous on the sign-up bonuses but wouldn’t be able to afford to continue with that level of generosity for an annual reward like this otherwise the card will be loss-making.
At a very rough guess, maybe the economics look like this. The annual fee is £240. Let’s say they want to give 75% of that back to customers, that’s £180 to play with. I don’t know how much they pay BA for the avios – maybe 0.5p/avios? Then if the average customer is spending £1,500 per month, that’s 1,500 x 1.5 avios/£ x 12 months x £0.005 per avios is £135 given back already, leaving £180 – £135 = £45 for the annual reward, which would then be 9,000 avios.
I got this too. Presumably it will be a derisory number of avios, but with the vouchers piling up still a nice alternative
Why should it be a “derisory number of Avios”? Barclays has been quite absurdly generous thus far.
I guess my logic would be that they have been very generous on the sign-up bonuses but wouldn’t be able to afford to continue with that level of generosity for an annual reward like this otherwise the card will be loss-making.
At a very rough guess, maybe the economics look like this. The annual fee is £240. Let’s say they want to give 75% of that back to customers, that’s £180 to play with. I don’t know how much they pay BA for the avios – maybe 0.5p/avios? Then if the average customer is spending £1,500 per month, that’s 1,500 x 1.5 avios/£ x 12 months x £0.005 per avios is £135 given back already, leaving £180 – £135 = £45 for the annual reward, which would then be 9,000 avios.
We’ll see, but in any event we will seemingly get a choice of the upgrade voucher or Avios so if it is a derisory Avios alternative you can stick to the voucher which seems pretty fair.
I just wish they aligned the terms of the upgrade vouchers to the 2-4-1 ones: allow for non-UK departure point, provide different levels of Avios pricing (rather than the ridiculous £1 for RFS).
I just wish they aligned the terms of the upgrade vouchers to the 2-4-1 ones: allow for non-UK departure point, provide different levels of Avios pricing (rather than the ridiculous £1 for RFS).
£1 for RFS is not ridiculous: it’s actually a poor option. Unless you suspect you could easily cancel and need to get your Avios back and ‘pay the minimal option price’ ie £1.
In terms of value for money, you should go for the old middle of the road option – you can easily work out value per Avios with a simple sum.
How many Avios do we save using the Cabin Upgrade Voucher on say LON – NYC return? 48K, did I get that right? I’m probably dreaming but I’d swap the voucher for 48K Avios!
I got this too. Presumably it will be a derisory number of avios, but with the vouchers piling up still a nice alternative
Why should it be a “derisory number of Avios”? Barclays has been quite absurdly generous thus far.
I guess my logic would be that they have been very generous on the sign-up bonuses but wouldn’t be able to afford to continue with that level of generosity for an annual reward like this otherwise the card will be loss-making.
At a very rough guess, maybe the economics look like this. The annual fee is £240. Let’s say they want to give 75% of that back to customers, that’s £180 to play with. I don’t know how much they pay BA for the avios – maybe 0.5p/avios? Then if the average customer is spending £1,500 per month, that’s 1,500 x 1.5 avios/£ x 12 months x £0.005 per avios is £135 given back already, leaving £180 – £135 = £45 for the annual reward, which would then be 9,000 avios.
The annual fee is £144, right? This is for the Barclays premier current account, not the Mastercard. In fact the annual fee is £84 after Dual Avios Reward.
The annual fee is £144, right? This is for the Barclays premier current account, not the Mastercard. In fact the annual fee is £84 after Dual Avios Reward.
Yes, good point, but I think the conclusion wouldn’t change much after taking this into account.
£1 for RFS is not ridiculous: it’s actually a poor option. Unless you suspect you could easily cancel and need to get your Avios back and ‘pay the minimal option price’ ie £1.
In terms of value for money, you should go for the old middle of the road option – you can easily work out value per Avios with a simple sum.
That’s of course true, if you have the choice to pick a different level of Avios. You don’t when you redeem the Barclays upgrade voucher. If a £1 price is available on the route (all short haul, and some long haul destinations), you are stuck with the £1 option and the crazy amount of Avios required.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
